Forbes blames Donald Trump for WWE's low viewership!

Monday Night Raw post Survivor Series 2016 has seen viewership fall up to 11.6% in the third hour.

[archive] Donald Trump and World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon made a wager on the outcome of a wrestling match during WWE's "Wrestlemania 23", with the winner shaving the head of the one who loses the bet.Reuters

When Donald Trump made a cameo at the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2007 and shaved Vince McMahon's head at WrestleMania 23 in Detroit, Michigan, the WWE rating went to an all-time high. According to reports, the pay-per-view (PPV) event still remains the as one of the biggest in the history of the pro wrestling company, with over a 1.2 million tickets bought.

Almost a decade has passed since and fast forward to November 2016, the same Donald Trump who was in the receiving end of a Stone Cold stunner in the PPV, is the president of the United States of America. How times change!

November 8, 2016 has remained historic for the people of US and Trump, especially. Not only trillions around the world but also the billionaire American businessman himself was shocked when it was learnt that Trump is the one succeeding Barack Obama.

Will Trump make an appearance yet again in the WWE? This remains the major question now as frankly speaking, the No 1 pro wrestling show in the world is in the need of major boost now. Of course, the likes of Goldberg, the Undertaker, Brock Lesnar and Sting have made comebacks in the recent years, truth be told, the attention generated in the PG era is much less compared to the ratings it made in the Attitude era.

Trump, who is a WWE Hall of Famer already, could turn out to be the person now who can change WWE's fortunes for a bit if he makes a re-appearance. But for now, when the 70-year-old is not making an appearance, Trump is actually turning out to be the reason behind WWE's fall in ratings, claims the renowned American business magazine Forbes!

ShowBuzz Daily has put up a statistic for WWE Monday Night Raw viewership for this past week, held at Toronto, Canada, post Survivor Series 2016:

WWE event

Segment

Viewership

Monday Night Raw (November 21)

1st hour

3.137 million

2nd hour

3.097 million

3rd hour

2.772 million (11.6% drop from the first hour)

Here are the shows WWE Monday Night Raw lost out to (in terms of Cable TV viewership):

#1 NFL's Monday Night Football

#2 SportsCenter

#3 The O'Reilly Factor

#4 Tucker Carlson Tonight

#5 Special Report

#6 The Five

#7 Monday Night Raw

Apart from the NFL Monday Night Football and SportsCentre, the other four shows in the list are politics-centric and Forbes feels the rise of Trump may have influenced this. WWE, thus, is facing a tough time now.

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Trump on September 26 from the Hofstra University amassed a whopping 30 million viewership on cable TV alone. The same day, Monday Night Raw garnered its lowest ever audience. Imagine Roman Reigns defending his US title against Rusev in the main event and Seth Rollins giving hints of a babyface turn, picking up so less viewership!